What Job Should I Get?

"work Monday thru Friday 9 to 5, and make at least 200K"

This may be a bit unrealistic

I'd say making 200K and helping people is also a bit unrealistic - which company is so altruistic to pay 30 year olds 200K while making the world a better place?

Maybe OP can give us an idea about how old he is today to get an idea whether there is even a possibility of getting somewhere near that dream scenario. If there was an easy answer to this question I think WSO would have a much lower user base.

I'm going into my Junior year of college

While in the realm of all that's possible there may be a job where you make $200k and work 9-5 at 30 I don't know of any. Once you leave the world of finance, consulting, big law and a few other industries/roles $200k is a lot of money to be making by 30 and I don't know of any where a 40 hour week is the norm. Banking -> corporate strategy/development may get you close in dollar terms and while the hours will be better, it won't be 9-5.

I did find this topic here called: "Private Wealth Management/Private Banking Guide for Associates"

And it says: “Not all investment banks operate under the commission model. JP Morgan's Private Bank compensates all of its employees under the salary + bonus model. JPM believes that this model incentivizes teamwork among all members of the office. The average compensation is somewhere around $500,000 for a Private Wealth Management representative working for a Wall Street firm and it takes an average of five or six years to reach that level.”

That sounded close to what I’m looking for because it says 5 or 6 years to reach 500,000. But 5 or 6 years after what? Graduating College or after getting an MBA? And what are the hours like for this type of job? For me, it doesn’t have to be strictly 9 to 5, but in that ball park. I definitely want weekends off though.

oh come on guys, this scenario isn't impossible. you'll have to work fairly hard early to make it happen, but there's lots of career tracks that will get you there by 30. the "helping people" thing is probably the most unreasonable part. in reality very few jobs actually help people in a meaningful way, and if they do, you'll sacrifice a lot in terms of comp, hours, location, etc. help people with your time/$$$ on weekends, not as your primary source of income.

The secret is out, you need to become an astronaut.

Take a look glassdoor.com and peruse the salaries at different companies, you are going to find very few salaries above 180k. And unless you are an Associate in finance or in BigLaw neither of which have anything close to those hours, you won't be making that kind of money at age 30 and quite frankly if its in NYC that 200k is 120k elsewhere.

The only place outside of those two is tech, and you'd need to be a senior TPM (seriously cool job) to be raking in that kind of money, or a senior software developer. While the hours are better, I wouldn't count on 40hr weeks.

Be a college professor. You're gonna have to be really smart but its doable. Any top 50 school should get you to that 200k mark after you get your PHD. The catch is that it is super competitive, I believe most programs have less than 5 students.

Go into the sales side of banking. Commercial, Private, etc. I have a colleague in a different department (Middle Market- Commercial Banking) and is a Relationship Manager. Last two years he pulled in 265k with base + bonus. He's 28. Not bad at all considering he works till 6:30 at most and has weekends off. You have to be comfortable talking to business owners that are making $$$$ though.

I too would like to make a lot of money without working very hard. And I guessss I would also like to help people.